Friday, 22 November 2013

Crikey, third year is NOT a walk in the park...

Wow, the last few weeks have been a rollercoaster. Slowly but surely, I am starting to realise just how difficult final year is. With the sudden realisation of just how little time there is left in uni and an array of deadlines creeping up, my head has been quite a mess.

Earlier this month I noticed just how little time I had to do so much work and it really freaked me out. Having said this, I didn't exactly jump into work mode, but instead spent time doing fun things with my flatmates or failing that, lazing around not doing much at all. Its hard to find the right balance in third year for work and social activities, especially when you are dreading leaving university and therefore want to spend every last minute enjoying yourself. Because of this, I started to leave a lot of important things til the very last minute.

While we might be getting nearer to Christmas, we are also getting closer and closer to deadlines, meaning I am currently in panic mode. Over the last few weeks, it has dawned on me just how much time I've been wasting and because of that, my stress levels have been through the roof. Due to the stress of upcoming deadlines and the fact that I found myself doing a module that was completely and utterly out of my comfort zone, I was feeling very overwhelmed. For the first time in three years, everything got a little too much and I actually wanted to leave it behind and go home, which is something extremely out of the blue for me.

After a minor mental breakdown and a bit of crying in various tutors offices, I decided to drop the module that was causing me issues and change to something that I am actually interested in and have quite a passion for. I also decided it was time to knuckle down and try to get some work done on the essays that have deadlines lurking around the corner.

It never occurred to me that I would feel so down and to be honest, depressed, with uni, but I think once in a while, every student has a bit of a rough patch and becomes unexpectedly overwhelmed with what is expected of them. I'm happy to say that the rough patch has gone and I am now feeling much better.

My tutors and some of my coursemates were very reassuring and told me that they've been in the same boat, which made me feel a lot better and less pathetic for crying in the first place! It felt as though everything was getting on top of me, but since then I have took control, made a start on some things and generally been more positive.

I don't really know what I'm aiming for by writing this in my blog but I know I've been a bit absent in writing for a while and to some extent this is why. I'm sure there are many other student bloggers who have felt similar or many who have just started their studies and will at some point. So I guess this post could help them in some way.
The morals of the story in short are:

Don't let things get ahead of you, take control

If you need to cry at someone, then don't feel daft, just let it out, everyone gets stressed from time to time

And more importantly if you do feel like this, don't let it hinder your university experience because its just a very small bump in the road of what is otherwise a fantastic journey and adventure.

So with all that in mind, I should get off my blog and do some more quote-hunting and research (Fun!)

Before I do though, I should probably mention my boyfriend in this.
He recently got the urge to jump on the blogging bandwagon and decided to start a blog and post something everyday. I initially teased him for stealing my turf but to be honest he has kept up with it pretty good so far and actually posted more recently than me! He doesn't have a specific topic or subject area, its just a diary entry style blog, but he's committed to it and it will definitely be interesting to read back over everything in a few months time. So why not check out his blog here and maybe give him a follow? Go easy though, he's new to this!

To anyone with upcoming uni deadlines, good luck!
And to the rest of you, you don't know how bloody lucky you are!